


thought of you as my mountaintop

by orphan_account



Series: telepathy!au [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Empathy, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Sam's Powers, Telepathy, i originally tagged as telekinesis instead of telepathy bc im dumb lmao sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 22:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9038000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: au of mid-s1. sam develops telepathy, dean is as emotionally constipated as usual, and sometimes home is a person.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all! this is my bitter sam girls club secret santa fic! i'm so so so excited that this turned out the way i wanted it to. @floorshowsam on tumblr, have a good holiday season. (that goes for everyone else too.) 
> 
> title is from pale blue eyes by the velvet underground. i pretty much listened to that and the rose ep by the front bottoms on repeat while writing this. 
> 
> i know it ends sort of...suddenly? but i felt like if i took it any further it would be ridiculously long. so it's a series! surprise.

the first time sam registers that he’s hearing dean’s thoughts, it rings clear as a bell in his head. “ _jesus, i could go for a beer_.”

the powers, so far, have been limited to shitty visions of death and that one spectacular instance of telekinesis when dean had a gun pulled on him (as if even this strange new part of him knew there was no surviving without dean). he’d even tried to read thoughts—had stared at dean and bobby and passerby so hard that even dean noticed, telling him to “untwist his panties” before his face got “stuck that way”. it’d been hopeless, and left him with an aching headache, so he decided he was just going to have to cope.

what’s weirder is that it’s completely innocuous. there’s no monster on their trail, no policemen following them, blaring their sirens. they’ve just pulled up to their motel door after finishing a particularly grueling hunt, and are too exhausted to get out for a few minutes, fast food rapidly cooling in between them on the cracked leather seats.

“ _jesus, i could go for a beer_ ,” seemingly floats in the air, and sam’s answered with an absent “yeah, me too” before he realizes that, wait, dean didn’t even open his mouth.

“what?” dean says looking up from their greasy mcdonald’s bag, fry dangling out of his mouth and brow furrowed.

sam rearranges his face into something a little less incriminating. “nothing, sorry. got distracted.”

the “ _weirdo_ ” that sounds from dean’s head might as well be verbal. dean raises his eyebrows but lets it go, climbing out of the car with an enormous groan. “c’mon sammy, there’s die hard on pay-per-view and a six-pack calling my name.” he decides not to mention that dean’s also thinking of sitting on the couch with sam’s head in his lap, scratching his scalp gently while they watch tv.

sam sits there for a few more seconds, his stomach suddenly lighter than it has been in weeks, before climbing out too.

\--

after that, it comes in fits and spurts—some days all he can hear is dean’s inner monologue, and other days its absolute silence. it’s not like his death visions, where he can help people with the knowledge he gains. it’s just the random and often weird crap that dean thinks up throughout the day, like how many onion rings he wants when they stop for dinner, how he thinks sam’s socks smell worse than his, or the pranks he’s going to pull on sam when he thinks sam’s not looking (which, ha, screw you dean).

he figures out that if he really concentrates, he can hear bobby’s thoughts too, which are usually irritable but with an undercurrent of paternal warmth whenever him and dean are around. from passerby he still can only get random snippets, so he’s stuck with mostly dean’s thoughts to keep his psychic company.

the only time it really comes in handy is if they’re in the middle of case, and sam’s getting attacked by a vengeful spirit but all he can hear is dean’s mind screaming “samsamsamsamsamhelpsam” until dean’s flicking a lighter open and throwing it down into a coffin, chest heaving, or he’s slicing his silver knife clean through a shifter’s heart. the knowledge that dean will take care of him no matter what is burned into his brain, but the validation is nice.

sam likes feeling the rocks digging into his back, feeling the dirt under his fingernails. as much as he hates being thrown around, it’s a weird kind of life-affirming beat down that usually invigorates him with enough adrenaline to pretend that he enjoys his job, his exhausting path in life. it’s harder if he can’t pretend; those days he just curls up in whatever scratchy motel bed he can find, and dean knows better than to try and drag him out. dean hovers then, and so do his thoughts, soft, unobtrusive things like “ _should i get him some more blankets?_ ” or “ _maybe i’ll go get him a salad, that healthy little shit would probably like a salad_ ”, and occasionally “ _this is just like when we were younger_ ”. some days sam wishes he were still ten years old, still able to fit in dean’s arms. maybe this ache wouldn’t be so deep.

(but who is he kidding. he’s always been this broken.)

\--

the colorado air still nips at sam’s heels when they find dad in late april.

the solid wall of anger emanating from the man is nothing new; what’s new is the words he can now put to the anger, words like “ _why doesn’t he ever listen_ ” and “ _i never have this problem with dean_ ”, and one “ _i’m sorry_ ” when he’s alone with dad in the car that makes him visibly shake, too taken aback to continue listening to what the man is actually saying. after that, john’s thoughts are quieter, more reticent, like there’s a wall closing some off. he’d always been a little too perceptive.

the tightly-coiled tension radiating from dean’s mind isn’t anything new either. he’s always been dad’s blank slate to project onto without complaint, but now sam can actually hear the inner turmoil. the guilty “ _it was so much easier without him here_ ” lurking inside dean’s head makes sam feel sick because, god, it was. it was infinitely easier to just be dean’s brother rather than john’s son. It was also easier to pretend that he wasn’t massively in love with his brother, but he does that anyways, so it’s not much of a transition.

then the car crash happens.

sam realizes then there really is no time to think during a car accident—there isn’t anything but loud, wordless, blaring emotion. a heady mix of _painfearworry_ careens around in the wreckage with them, and sam can pinpoint the second dad’s unconscious (so much is gone from the air) before he passes out too, his gun still pointed at the demon slipping easily into a plume of black smoke from the truck driver’s mouth.

the hospital is even worse; the intensity of the emotions surrounding him on all sides gives him a near-constant throbbing ache behind his eyes, and the fact that he can hardly concentrate anymore without the stream of dean’s consciousness constantly chattering inside his head freaks him out a lot more than he’d like to admit. he can feel a faint whisper, almost, something tugging at the back of his mind that feels like dean. but he can’t be sure, not until he pulls out that ouija board that he knows dean will yell at him for later and just babbles, waiting for something, anything. sam wonders how fucked up his life’s gotten that the feel of disembodied hands on his is comforting.

and then, quick as air, he feels dean snap back into his body as though dean’s body were his own. the relief is so vivid he shivers with it, and he immediately searches out dean’s mind with his own, except—except. there’s a wall. where dean’s thoughts usually flow through freely, there’s almost a filter, some thoughts escaping but some stuck.

sam goes to ask him if his head’s feeling okay, but dean opens his mouth and starts into that frantic rant of someone with blank holes in their memory, too much empty time, and he shuts his mouth. he can’t risk dean knowing he can read minds, not when dean’s so much easier to read, filter or not. not when he can glean dean’s affection from every possible source. if that’s selfish, he can be selfish.

john walks in, his wall firmly in place. at least some things never change. the coffee sam’s sent for is an obvious distraction, but he takes it. he figures dad deserves a little time to explain to dean why finding a demon was more important than finding something to save dean’s life. he can feel dean’s wordless shock lapping at his heels, but he pushes forward. it was better for him to hear it from dad rather than sam, he reasons with himself. let the man fight his own shitty battles.

he hears it, when john collapses. the silence he leaves is ugly. sam and dean skip town and head straight for bobby’s the next day, dean’s mind blissfully blank enough with grief to allow sam to retreat into his own.

\--

he knows dean’s keeping something from him, about what dad said to him before he died. most of dean’s thoughts about dad remain behind that goddamn wall, but some spill forward, reeking of shame and guilt and this hard rage that shocks sam. whatever dad told dean, it was enough to break dean’s hero-worship of him, so sam’s not entirely sure he wants to know. he resents the man now, still, even in death.

it has made him more protective of sam, however. his thoughts linger on every scar on sam’s body, every miniscule injury from hunts. sam would be lying if he said it didn’t make him flush bright pink with pleasure when dean wasn’t looking. he’s a weak man, but at least he’s only weak for dean.

bobby’s thoughts around dean remain the same, if a little more worried, but his thoughts around sam are guarded, suspicious. bobby pulls him aside after he’s sent dean out for some parts he didn’t already have lying around one day, when they’ve gotten back from the shitshow that was andy and his evil twin (because, you know, that’s their life now—evil psychic twins).

“sam,” bobby says, and sam can feel the hesitancy rolling off him in waves as he hands sam a cold beer.

“yes, bobby?”

“how long have you been able to read minds? and sense emotions?” sam chokes on his beer. “and don’t bother trying to tell me you don’t. i may be old, but i’m not stupid.”

“i…” sam trails off, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. “almost a year.”

the swift smack to the back of the head bobby gives him isn’t unexpected, but it hurts like a bitch and sam whines at bobby, pressing his cold beer to his head before bobby speaks again.

“and how long have you been spying on dean’s thoughts?”

sam swallows heavily. “almost a year.”

bobby sighs, but it’s one of resignation, not frustration. “fair enough. boy’s always been like a clogged toilet when it comes to the nitty-gritty emotional nonsense.”

“do you think he knows?” sam says.

bobby grimaces and shakes his head. “nah, he’s been too wrapped up in his own problems. you know how it is.”

“can you—can you keep this from him? for just a little bit longer?” sam bites his lip, trying to avoid using his “puppy eyes” as dean calls them. bobby’s immune to them at this point anyways.

“boy—“

“bobby, i swear i’ll tell him soon, just…not right now. i will, i promise.”

bobby makes another face at him, but takes a deep pull of his beer and says nothing for a while. “fine. but you better do it soon. the longer you keep it from him, the more pissed he’s gonna be when he finds out.”

sam chews the inside of his cheek and nods, looking at his toes scuffing into the dirt. “i know.” god, he knows.

he spots the impala rumbling down bobby’s driveway, and the nearly-imperceptible ache in his chest vanishes. he feels better when dean is within his psychic range, now. he’s not sure he knows who he is without dean inside his head anymore.

\--

this strained air between them, coupled with the grief and dean’s increasing suspicion that sam is hiding something comes to head with the croatoan virus.

dean’s mind rapidly turns dark, formulating suicide pacts with an ease that frightens sam beyond measure, though it doesn’t really surprise him. he’s got enough experience at pulling dean back from death to know that he doesn’t want to live in a world without dean, and dean doesn’t seem to want to live without him. codependency was always their style.

“i’m tired, sam. i'm tired of this job, this life…this weight on my shoulders, man. i'm tired of it,” dean says, with such naked honesty that sam can almost let him have this, let him die ugly in here with sam like a caged animal.

“dean, i…i have something to tell you,” sam says suddenly, “and you’re gonna hate it and you’re gonna hate me but if i’m dying and you’re coming with me, i guess this is my only chance. so here goes.”

dean narrows his eyes at him, but sits next to sam on the exam table, knocking their shoulders together affectionately. “okay, final words. shoot.”

“i can…um…read minds. too. and like, feel the waves of emotions off people? which bobby calls empathy. and, i’ve been hearing your thoughts for about as long as I’ve been able to read minds, so, almost a year now and, shit, you’re really letting me talk, aren’t you? please say something.”

dean’s face had gone blank after the first couple of words, and all sam can hear is “ ** _getoutgetoutgetoutgetout_** ”.

sam can feel the tears on his face now, mixing with the tracks on his face from earlier. “i know, i’m sorry, you must hate me, i know, i’m sorry—“ but. dean’s cut him off by sealing his mouth over sam’s, licking warm and persistent into sam’s mouth like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do (which, at this point, it might be).

dean pulls back, resting his forehead on sam’s, hot pants fanning over sam’s bright red cheeks. “i really hope that made sense.”

sam’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “but i never—you never—i thought you were just being dean, i didn’t think—i always thought it was just me.”

dean’s mouth curves into a lopsided grin, something secret and soft, only for sam. “sammy, i’ve been in love with you since you were sixteen. i’ve just been waiting for you to catch up.

sam chokes out a little sob before dean shushes him gently, wiping away sam’s tears with the pads of his thumbs. “why didn’t we figure this out sooner?”

“i d’know handsome, but i think this one’s on you. you can literally read minds and you still couldn’t figure out that i’ve got the hots for you.”

sam’s about to go in for another sorry-i’m-dying-and-just-found-out-you-love-me kiss, but then the doctor walks in, an odd mix of confusion and hope in her eyes.


End file.
